


Rise and Fall

by reclusiveq



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclusiveq/pseuds/reclusiveq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he fell from the train, Bucky is found still alive. But his rescue isn't what he had hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fall

Bucky opened his eyes slowly. He had force them open. They felt heavy and he struggled against the weight of his lids. He blinked more than a few times, but even that barely helped.

Around him, the wind howled, whisking the falling snow around and bringing a bitter chill to the air, but he didn't feel very cold. He did feel a distant pain though, one that started in his head and slowly spread through his body as he became more aware of his surroundings. He was laying in a snow bank, he found, the white mound marred by blood. He couldn't turn his head very much to see where the blood had come from, so instead he stared up at the falling snow and tried to piece together what had happened.

It was hard to pull his thoughts together. His mind was sluggish and thick, and trying to think was like trudging through a muddy trench. He could only focus on one thing at a time.

Somewhere far above him was a train track. That's right. He had fallen. How was he even still alive? He had to close his eyes again - the world was too bright for him, and his head throbbed horribly. It had to have been the snow bank, he thought. It had broken his fall. But even as he thought that, another horrible memory came to him. The memory of lying on a cold metal table in a prison camp...

It wasn't that long ago, but it felt like ages. His memory of his time there was spotty, but he was sure they had done something to him. Steve's voice came to him, talking about the serum, and Bucky felt a sinking sensation. What if they had done something similar to him? Or worse, what if they had turned him into a monster?

It would be just like the Nazis and Hydra, of course. Turn him and the other men in his troop into unthinking, unfeeling weapons. No, they wouldn't have made him like Steve. They'd make him a monster.

_Is it permanent?_ Bucky had asked.

_So far,_ Steve had responded.

Unbidden tears sprang to his eyes as self-pity set in. It wasn't fair! He didn't deserve this. He'd never wanted to be a soldier. He had only ever wanted to stay in Brooklyn and take care of Steve. But he had been forced into this war and look what it had gotten him. A slow trip to hell and constant agony. This war had taken the only two things he cared about - his humanity and his friend.

Steve didn't need him anymore. Not that he had ever really needed Bucky. Not like Bucky needed him. With his new powers, Bucky was only in the way. Would Steve even take time to come look for Bucky's body, or would he leave him out here to the elements?

Bucky took a deep breath. This wasn't the time for wallowing in grief. He couldn't wait for someone to come and rescue him. Even if whatever they had injected him with eventually turned him into a monster, it hadn't yet and he might be able to make use of it. The real question was how. He was likely to freeze to death before he starved, but at least he could use the snow to stave off dehydration.

He tested his right hand first. He could wiggle his fingers without pain, so hopefully nothing was broken. He then tried his left hand. Nothing happened. There was no movement, no feeling, nothing. Bucky's eyes shot open and he moved his head as quickly as he dared to his left arm... his missing left arm.

Panic set in. He somehow found the strength to move, jerking to the right as if to escape the absence of his arm. It was missing from just above the elbow. There was no more blood flowing from the wound. It had mostly scabbed over, no doubt thanks to the cold weather and perhaps some healing effect from the experiment, but that only made things worse. Was he already changing?

Bucky fought back against the panic unsuccessfully. How much blood had he lost? The snow seemed covered in it. The wind bit at the tears on his cheeks. Some disconnected part of his mind recognized that the other soldiers would probably tease him mercilessly about it.

Over the wind and the sound of his own breathing, Bucky heard footsteps behind him. His first feeling was hope. Had Steve come for him after all? He wiped his tears away. What a jerk, making him worry. But that hope faded quickly. If it was Steve, he would have spoken already. Bucky opened his own mouth, but his tongue was swollen and he couldn’t make the words come.

He tried to look over, but a few seconds later, hands roughly grabbed his shoulders, hauling him out of the snow bank. It only took a single glance at the uniform to see that these men were not here to help him. He struggled a bit, but one of the men punched him hard in the face. Bucky's vision swam, darkness tingeing the edges.

Another man bound up the wound, which only made Bucky panic more. They were taking him prisoner. He saw the lapel one of the men wore and the sight nearly made him through up. These weren't just enemies. He was back in Hydra's grasp.

A single whimper escaped his lips. One of the men laughed and said something in German… or maybe it was Russian. It hardly mattered as they were all Hydra agents anyway. They were standing around so casually as Bucky was wrapped up then stuck on a makeshift sling. There was no fear in their actions, only triumph, as if they’d found a precious gem that they’d misplaced. Perhaps that wasn’t far from the truth, if Bucky was correct about the experiments on him.

As they grabbed the ropes of the sling, Bucky found that he had no fight left in him. There was too much pain and fear. Hydra would be able to finish what they had started and Bucky would no longer be a man. That was his last thought before he blacked out.


	2. Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finds himself in a familiar situation, and finds himself tested.

When he came to again, Bucky found himself in a familiar position. He was strapped to a table once again, with an officer staring emotionlessly down at him. "Begin the procedure," the man said in heavily accented English. Bucky suspected that was for his benefit, and not for the scientists surrounding him, working diligently away. The officer looked at Bucky. "We thought we had lost all of our experiments. Herr Schmidt was glad to hear that we got one of them back."

Bucky ran a tongue across his parched lips. Giving his rank and serial number would do him no good here, he knew. "Where am I?" His voice cracked under the strain of speaking. One of the scientists brought a glass to his lips and poured it into his mouth. He swallowed and choked, half of the water dribbling down his chin and cheek.

"Where you are is of no concern," the officer said. "You will not be rescued." 

Bucky swallowed and glanced down at the remnants of his arm. He thought of Steve. Steve wouldn't be afraid. “I will be,” Bucky muttered, more to reassure himself than as an act of defiance. The officer stepped forward.

“What was that?”

Bucky tore his gaze away from his left and forced himself to meet the officer's gaze. “I will be rescued. Captain America will come for me.” Bucky felt his lip curl up in disgust. “He'll tear you down.”

The officer laughed. “Captain America will come for me,” he repeated in a mocking voice. “Captain America has his hands full with Herr Schmidt. You see, Schmidt has a vision for the world. And he has plans for you as well. Plans, I think, that you will embrace before too long.”

“I won't,” Bucky protested, but his own confidence was thin and wavered under the officer's own certainty.

The man leaned forward and grabbed Bucky's face roughly, staring back at him. “You will,” he said firmly. He stepped back and gestured at a table, drawing Bucky's eyes to it. Bucky saw a metal arm there. A man was working on it, testing the movement. Wires hung out at one end and the man tested each one. 

“A gift,” the officer said. “For when you choose to join us.”

Bucky realised it was a replacement for his missing arm. He shook his head. “I'll never join you,” he protested weakly.

“Oh you will, whether you want to or not.” He waved to a couple of men, who started strapping something to Bucky's head.

Bucky felt the panic well up again. "What... what are you doing? What is that?"

"That? That is your future." 

It felt like they were putting his head into a corkscrew. He tried to struggle, but he was strapped down too tightly and the vice secured his head. Something was shoved roughly between his teeth. The officer leaned down over him. He smelled faintly of musk. Bucky tried to glare up at him, but he only felt fear. The man grinned, seeing the fear in Bucky's eyes. "We will mold you to our will. You will do our work, our secret assassin." The man stepped back and nodded at the scientists. Looking down at Bucky, the officer grinned again. "Wipe him."

There was nothing at first, then Bucky became aware of the sound of electricity buzzing near his ear. A moment later, jolts of electricity shot through his head. He jerked suddenly, screaming past the mouthpiece. He might have cried, but all he knew right now was pain. It felt like someone was jabbing sharp needles deep into his brain. He kept screaming, his eyes closed, his body in spasms against the restraints. The pain went on for an eternity. When it finally stopped, Bucky passed out.

They didn't let him stay out for long. They jabbed something into his arm that brought him wide awake with a gasp. He jerked painfully against the bonds. The officer started asking him questions, which Bucky struggled to answer. Then they flicked the switch again. 

He couldn't have said how long they continued this procedure. He lost track. They would turn on the electricity, frying his brain, then stop when he passed out, wake him up and bombard him with questions that, had he been more aware, would have made him wonder how they knew so much about him. But he was aware of nothing but the pain.

“What is your name? Where were you born? Who is your best friend? Where were you stationed?”

The list of questions went on and on. Sometimes he remembered the answers, but a lot had slipped away. He was forgetting so much under the treatment. He struggled to remember. He knew if he forgot, they would win. But the treatment was too much. 

Eventually names stopped holding meaning for him as well, dates and places the same. The man would name a place and Bucky would just stare at him blankly, truly not remembering. It was scary to him, moreso than anything else. He forgot why he was even fighting these people. Why was he struggling against them? All he knew was that they were the ones hurting him. If he stopped fighting, would they stop hurting him?

“Who is Steve Rogers?”

Bucky stared at the man. Hearing the name made him feel strange, like he should know it, but didn't. “I don't know,” he said out loud, after a long moment. “I don't know that name.”

“And what is your name?”

He willed himself to remember his own name. They had to let him keep that. He had nothing else.

“What is your name?” The officer repeated

“Sergeant James Barnes,” Bucky said, slowly, forcing the name past his lips. “My name...” he looked up at the man. “...is Bucky.”

The mouth piece was stuck back in and the machine turned back on. Bucky didn't pass out this time. It wasn't that he didn't feel the pain. This time he embraced it. He still screamed, it was still painful as hell, but he embraced that pain. It was time to stop fighting.

The machine turned off and he found his mind blissfully blank. He stared off into space, trying to remember anything, but nothing came to him. A man stepped into his line of sight and looked at him as the mouth piece was removed. "Bucky,” the man said simply. There was no question in his voice.

"Bucky? Who the hell is Bucky?"


	3. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With no memory left of himself, Bucky's brainwashing is put to the test.

Bucky set the glass down. He stared into the brown liquid, but he didn't see it. His hand shook just a little as his mind wandered, unbidden, back to that room. Dragged in there fighting, the nazis had strapped him down to that table. He tried to tell them his information. Surely they would grant him some clemency, but nobody listened. His voice became a plea, begging them to stop. They stuck a needle in him. Were they drawing blood? No, they were injecting him with something. His left arm burned, pain shot through his whole body and he convulsed. They held him down and the pain went away, taking his fight with it. He was still repeating his name, rank, and serial number, but it was no longer a plea for mercy. It was just familiar.

Someone walked behind him and Bucky jumped, knocking his glass over. Nearby, he heard Steve talking to the boys. Muttering under his breath, Bucky asked for another drink, trying to mop up the mess before Steve saw. He didn't need or want Steve's pity. Glancing over at the table, Bucky saw the men all laughing and nodding. Steve was gathering up glasses and bringing them over to the bar.

"Told you they were idiots," Bucky joked, trying to make light of the situation.

"What about you? You ready to follow Captain America?"

Bucky spoke slowly. He was conflicted. "Hell no. That skinny kid from Brooklyn who was too stupid to run away from a fight? I'm following him."   
Even as he said it, he knew it was true. He'd pay back those bastards that did this to him. He didn't know what they'd done, but as he glanced at Steve, he suspected. 

"Is it permanent?"

"So far."  
 _  
Bucky held back a shudder. "Keeping the uniform?"_

_"It's growing on me," Steve said with a smile that should have warmed Bucky's heart. It did nothing._

_Thankfully, he was spared from having to make further conversation. A beautiful woman had entered the bar and was headed their way. Bucky stood up at the same time as Steve. She seemed to only have eyes for Steve, but Bucky had to try and maintain some semblance of normalcy. He tried to flirt, but was ignored. "I'm invisible," he joked once she was gone. "I'm turning into you."_

_Steve laughed and went back to his drink._

~~~

A shock went through the soldier and he quickly forgot the dream he'd been having. He found himself on his knees, cold and naked. Behind him, the door to the cryofreezer he'd been stuck in bounced softly on its hinges. Frigid air poured out of it, colder than the surrounding temperature, though there was no such thing as warmth in this icy hell.

"Stand up." The order was spoken in Russian, but the soldier understood every word. He couldn't have said how he knew. No doubt it was from the massive amount of information they were forcing into his brain on a daily basis. The soldier stood, casting a sideways glance at the menacing chair next to him. That chair held nothing but pain for him and he hated it. 

A man stood before him, with an angry pinched face. He looked at the naked man with a sneer. "Do you know your name?" The man demanded in Russian.  
The soldier kept his eyes forward. "No." It was true. All he knew was that they had taken everything from him. It should bother him, but the chair, that hated, torturous device, kept him placid. He would forget anything to keep away from that chair. He didn't care that he couldn't remember his own name. It seemed pointless to remember anyway.

"And what is your mission?"

"To obey orders." How often had they questioned him like this? It was always the same. Defreeze him, ask him the same questions over and over. If he answered incorrectly or in a way that made them angry, they would wipe him and start over. Jam his mind full of warfare and fighting and languages to further the cause of HYDRA, then stick him back into the freezer. Over and over. Sometimes he thought he dreamed in cryo, but between the shock of the freezing and then the additional shock of being released, any dream he had were forgotten under the wave of other information. He didn't try to retain the memories either. They held no meaning for him.

The man started asking other odd questions that the soldier didn't know the answer to, then some about stuff he did know. Who Hydra was and what their goal was (to unite the world under one flag), who was the enemy (everyone!)... The soldier didn't doubt that it was a good mission. No more war, no more struggling... But more than that, he only cared about his mission - to obey orders, no matter what they were. Those orders kept him out of that chair.

Finally the man seemed satisfied. He nodded to the chair. Although the soldier hated that chair, he didn't hesitate to sit down. It would be worse if he resisted. He expected the mouth bit, but it didn't come. "You have pleased us," the man said. "You are ready for your next level of training." He motioned and some scientists brought over a wrapped object. 

They unwrapped it to reveal a metal arm. The soldier eyed it, then looked at his left side. He didn't have a left arm, though he couldn't remember how he had lost it. "With this arm" the man continued, "You will serve Hydra and carry out our purpose for as long as you live."

"Yes," the soldier agreed, since the man seemed to be waiting for that. 

"Good. This will hurt but I think you can handle it." 

The soldier leaned back in the chair and braced himself. He realized it wasn’t just a stump of an arm. They were connecting it to the damaged nerves at his shoulder. They seared them together, fusing them and bringing the nerves back to life at the same time. They hadn’t given him anything to bite down on so he had to concentrate on enduring the pain without biting his own tongue off. And painful it was, more so than the wipes and the information jamming into his head. His body felt on fire and he had to concentrate so hard on not jerking around, which only made the pain more intense.

They used screws to affix the arm around his shoulders and hold it in place. A face flashed before his eyes and the soldier suddenly lashed out, unable to hold onto the pain any longer. He didn’t feel the crunching of bone or the death cry of the scientist he’d slammed his metal fist into. He sat forward breathing heavily, the face he’d seen already faded into non-existence again.

The man who had been speaking to him just laughed at the dead body. “Good. It works. Stand up,” he ordered the soldier. “Test it.” The soldier stood and tested his arm slowly. He rolled it around. It had better movement than his flesh arm. He tested the fingers as well, folding and unfolding them into a fist. They were clearly designed to be powerful. It would be a good fighting hand.

The soldier looked up at the man in charge. He didn’t even think about attacking this man. The soldier’s mission was to obey orders and this was the man giving them. Who else would give them if this man was dead?

The man turned away and grabbed a passing soldier. “Bring him clothes. We will need to test him physically now.”

 

The soldier was soon dressed and brought to an arena-like room. Around the edge of the large room, a variety of weapons were spread out on tables. Knives, guns, grenades… any weapon imaginable. The soldier took everything in. Without even thinking, he knew exactly what each weapon was and the situation it would be best suited for.

On the other side of the room, a door was opened and about a dozen men and women were shown in. The soldier eyed them all carefully. Some of these people were soldiers like him, and some weren’t. They looked both scared and defiant. 

The man who had brought him here watched the group as well. “They are enemies of Hydra. You will kill them all once I tell you to begin. If you leave even one alive, you will have failed your mission. Do you understand?”

The soldier nodded slowly, watching the people, picking out the more dangerous targets first. He looked up at the Hydra guards surrounding the arena. There was a high platform from which people could see everything happening in the arena. There was nothing to hide behind on the floor itself, other than the tables.

“Stay here,” the man said. He turned and left the soldier standing there, eyeing the group and sizing up the situation. They were all nationalities, it seemed. American, English, African, even a couple Germans and Russians. He could tell that some would be more dangerous than others, but he had an advantage. They were already moving to protect the three women. It was a handicap for them.

Movement caught his eye to the right and he looked up to see the man in charge up on the platform, starting to speak into a microphone. He was speaking to the group on the other side. “You have been brought here to make an example of. If you can kill that soldier,” the man pointed at him. “Then I will let you go free. You can use any weapon.”

Now the men were looking at the tables, ready to go for the weapons. The women were eyeing them too. Now the soldier deemed them dangerous. Anyone fighting for freedom would be dangerous. But this was his mission. He would not fail.

He flexed his new arm. They had said they were testing him physically. He was still in pain from the procedure and he had never used this arm before. But somehow he still knew he would win. He was at a distinct disadvantage, but he could see everything clearly. He had to embrace the pain. Become one with it. Let it fuel his actions.

“Begin.” 

The prisoners ran forward, grabbing weapons in a frantic attempt to protect themselves. The soldier moved more deliberately. One of the prisoners was able to get a grenade. He threw it. The soldier ducked, letting it land behind him. He sidestepped quickly, grabbing a shield laying on one of the tables, and a loaded gun with it. The grenade exploded, but the soldier was protected behind the shield. A second later, the shield flew through the dust and debris, embedding itself in the prisoner’s chest. 

One of the women screamed and grabbed a gun, firing wildly into the direction the shield had come from, but the soldier had used the smoke to hide his movements. He fired once, a clean headshot and the woman dropped. Five more shots followed, five more prisoners fell.

The gun was empty, and the soldier dropped it to the ground. He had a second gun, but by now the more professional soldiers had gathered their wits and were hiding behind one of the tables, firing at him from cover.

The soldier dodged most of the bullets. One hit, and it hurt, but he used the pain to keep going, his adrenaline racing. Someone fired at his head and he raised his metal arm instinctively. The bullet richoted off and embedded itself in the chest of another prisoner.

The soldier was surprised, but adapted quickly. This arm was useful in more ways than one and now that he saw how useful, he used it in the fight as much as the other weapons.

Before long, all the prisoners were dead except one woman. The soldier had his cold metallic fingers wrapped around her throat as she struggled. His eyes were emotionless. She stopped struggling for a moment and looked up at him. “Monster,” she whispered in Russian.

He closed his grip, feeling her neck snap in his grasp. Letting her body fall to the floor, he looked at his arm. Monster? No, he was just fulfilling his mission. He wasn’t even aware he was still bleeding as the Hydra guards came in to clean up the mess.

The man in charge stepped over to him and nodded. “You have completed your mission. You are ready.”

The soldier followed the man out, sparing no more thoughts for the carnage behind him.


End file.
